


When You Don't Know Yourself

by BarefootJourney



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:02:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23032153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootJourney/pseuds/BarefootJourney
Summary: TW for a lightly graphic depiction of PTSDSeven's mind is battered and bruised.  Janeway is right there beside her.Seven wanted to press herself into her captain, disappear into the safety of her body, but simultaneously felt the overwhelming urge to rip herself away and run. Distantly she knew that one cannot escape themselves, but oh, how she wished it were possible.She sways in the panicked fray. A frigid burn swiftly creeps through her veins, filling her lungs, seizing scorched neurons, flashing blindly behind her eyes.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway & Seven of Nine, Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	When You Don't Know Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> A personal and cathartic writing project for me. PTSD is a damned bitch, and unless you've been in it, consumed and buried in the trenches, you can never fully understand it. The panic and anger battling to be the first out of the gate at the most random, inopportune times.  
> This was my attempt to bridge that gap in a constructive way.

Floating somewhere between existence and oblivion...  
She stood in the doorway, unable to move, held fast by a magnetic tether, caught in the middle of the push and pull. 

"Captain." A mewled whisper. 

*******  
Janeway opened her arms, inviting her distraught friend to fall into them from the precipice she dangerously teetered on.  
The tremors came first. A warning of the tumultuous pressure beneath the surface.  
Kathryn said nothing. There was nothing appropriate for this moment, no word exists to compliment the sound a soul makes as it shatters. Nothing can soothe the burn of devastation and destruction. 

Seven wanted to press herself into her captain, disappear into the safety of her body, but simultaneously felt the overwhelming urge to rip herself away and run. Distantly she knew that one cannot escape themselves, but oh, how she wished it were possible.  
She couldn't finish a single thought without intrusive images of the past few years, in sickening detail. She could smell the damp concrete, the musky sweet cologne, feel slick, sticky skin, hear voices. It was as if it was all still happening and she was just daydreaming that it wasn't. She hated herself, hated how she foolishly thought life was going to be some charming delightful adventure now that she had quit smuggling supplies and gotten her shit together.  
Bile burned her tongue as her stomach churned at the remembrance of what they did to her. How could Janeway even hold her after that? Everyone saw... everyone knows. Everyone is going to be thinking of it whenever they look at her. How disgusting she is, they would wonder and concoct scenarios in their minds to fill in the blanks of the details they don't know.  
Acid tears scoured her eyes. She has done nothing good, accomplished nothing worthy of living. She was an ex borg, a ranger.... that allowed herself to be manipulated and tricked, taken and unknowingly held hostage, thinking it was love.  
She shot people... killed them....  
Icheb haunted her mind, her heart seized and lurched. She fell for a plot Bjayzl concocted and got Icheb brutally destroyed.  
She was shit at her job.  
She needed to get away and stop cursing those around her with her continued existence and presence in their lives. She keeps fucking up. She keeps causing grief and worry, and now she is useless.  
Seven jerks against Kathryn's chest, adrenaline at her realisations propelling her to fling herself away from her undeserved refuge.  
Cold air surrounds her immediately, sucking the breath from her body. Staring at the floor, her mind succumbs to the memories and she slowly stumbles backward until she collides with the wall.

The thoughts screech, howl, and implode upon each other.  
It won't stop.  
Its grip and control gains strength at each futile attempt she makes to free herself from it.  
Her hands come to grasp her hair, as if she could find purchase and leverage there, then wildly flail, clawing at the crowded nothingness that's consumed her entire being.  
It doesn't make sense. There's no escape.  
She sways in the panicked fray. A frigid burn swiftly creeps through her veins, filling her lungs, seizing scorched neurons, flashing blindly behind her eyes.  
She had to move. The world warped and spun. She couldn't put memories or thoughts in chronological order. It was as if it had always been this way.  
Perhaps she was crazy and people only indulged her delusions. Reality didn't exist for her.  
The fear fueled her launch for what she hoped was the door.  
Instead of wood, she connected with a figure that dove in front of her.

Janeway had been still and observant, trying to let the traumatised woman dictate what happened next.  
"Seven! Seven! SEVEN!!!" She sparred with the frenetic energy, trying to push herself through to be heard and seen over whatever was going on in the other woman's mind and doing her best to restrain her without making the situation worse.  
"Seven, listen to me. I need you to remember what I told you."  
"I don't... I can't think, I don't know what's real. I don't know who I am. What's happening? Nothing makes sense."  
"Sev..." Kathryn lowered her voice, but kept the strength behind it. "I need you to remember what I told you. When there is nothing else..."  
"I can't."  
"Shh."  
"I'm gonna be sick."  
"Alright. Come here." She gripped Seven's arm and guided her on unsteady limbs to the rubbish bin mere seconds before violent retching began. 

...  
Fatigue began to take over, though Seven's anguish was still readily apparent.  
"Seven, honey, c'mere. Come settle in. Can you show me that you remember what I told you? Can you do that for me? Please?"  
The hesitant hope in Janeway's voice cradled Seven's heart, gently tugging to close the distance between them.  
Though still trembling, she acquiesced and warily tucked herself into her captain.  
She had just tried this less than an hour ago and the results were tragic. 

This time though, she did as she had been told. Her heart rattled a brisk staccato inside her rib cage, but Janeway's called to it, sure, steady, requesting that it follow her lead.


End file.
